No Place Like Home: GAME Moonbase

There are times in life when you know exactly what to expect. The Sun is going to rise, Undertaker is going to win at Wrestlemania, and so on. Every now and then however, life throws something completely unexpected at you. When the GAME Ltd space was announced there was speculation as to what it could incorporate. Game Radio? The ability to purchase physical PS3 titles from Home? Game Staff uniform for your avatar?

Sadly we didn’t get anything along these lines. But we did get a Moonbase!

When you enter the area, there is a vast moonscape and the base in front of you. You enter a lobby, with a bunch of posters asking you to venture to your local GAME store and PreOrder a bunch of titles. Around the lobby are pods, when you access them you are told that for now you can access the PlayStation Home forum to give feedback on the Moonbase and that coming soon is the ability to sign up for a GAME reward card, and you will be able to check the points balance. A nice little feature, and I hope it is expanded on to allow you to actually preorder titles. Maybe even receive exclusive Avatar bonuses for preordering and purchasing in this way. Like an exclusive Gran Turismo T-shirt if you preorder GT5 in the moonbase!

Also in the main lobby is a screen, currently running an Iron Man 2 Trailer. It is a short trailer and the constant loop is annoying. A series of 5 or 6 trailers would be much better, and reduce the amount of repeated audio!

To the back of the lobby is the Lunar Leap game, and to each side are staircases heading to the upper deck. I’ll come back to Lunar Leap, and for now head up stairs to the dance floor.

Now, if there is one thing Home users like to do its Dance and GAME Moonbase has you covered. In the centre of the roof is the dance floor area, and around it are large booths with chairs circling a hologram PS3 controller. When you try to access the controller you currently get a ‘Coming soon’ flash up and nothing happens. The synth club music is pretty good, and it didn’t become annoyingly repetitive but that might just have been because the IronMan 2 trailer had damaged my brain on its constant loop.

The main reason to visit the GAME Moonbase is to try out the Lunar Leap game, and be warned. It is VERY frustrating. You must jump accross platforms and activate 8 perimeter platforms in under 3mins. Stopping you power bar at the right point is tricky and slowly floating over your target is infuriating as your constantly rushing to beat the clock. Eventually, you will find a path through the platforms and unlock a GAME branded space suit. Which, to be fair, is quite badass and worth the time spent pulling your hair out.

The impression i got from GAME Moonbase is that it has potential but isn’t quite there yet. Extra mini games are promised, and everything seems to point at something very special eventually, but for now it is just a nice place to visit, but not somewhere your going to spend hours socialising.